Column: I-25 widening requires range of funding sources

Late last Friday afternoon, I took a call from a Denver friend who was traveling south on Interstate 25 while returning from a family vacation in the Dakotas.

"Oh my gosh, I knew north I-25 was an issue, but now I really understand what you've been talking about," she said. She was marooned somewhere between Fort Collins and Loveland with hours still to go.

Welcome to our world, friend.

As I've discussed in this space before, north I-25 is already at Level of Service D, quickly headed toward F, which was what my friend was experiencing. The Colorado Department of Transportation is scheduled to take up the matter in 2075, when funding to add interstate lanes in Northern Colorado becomes available.

That's completely unacceptable to all of us, of course, including Northern Colorado business leaders. A group called the Fix North I-25 Business Alliance is being established through the Northern Colorado Legislative Alliance, a joint effort of the Fort Collins, Greeley and Loveland chambers of commerce, and the Northern Colorado Economic Development Corporation and Upstate Colorado Economic Development.

The goal of the Fix North I-25 Business Alliance is to secure $965 million to widen I-25 between U.S. Highway 14 and Colorado Highway 66 to three lanes in each direction by 2025. In a world where transportation funding is constrained, that's a heavy lift.

The alliance believes that:

• We cannot wait until 2075 to widen I-25. Doing so would be a major setback to the economic vitality and livability of the Northern Colorado region and would threaten public safety.

• It is imperative to expand the capacity of north I-25 to meet the demands of the fastest-growing area of the state.

• Congestion wastes time, kills jobs, adversely impacts quality of life and harms the natural environment.

• CDOT should replace its approach of working north from Denver to working south from Fort Collins to first expand I-25 segments with the worst congestion, such as the section between Harmony Road and U.S. Highway 34 and southbound lanes on the 2-mile-long Berthoud hill.

• This problem belongs to CDOT and the Colorado Legislature working with federal authorities. After all, this is a federal interstate.

• That said, while it's their problem to solve, it's our problem to live with. Of necessity, more responsibility must be borne at the local level.

• Funding for north I-25 improvements will come from multiple revenue streams including a combination of federal, state and local governments, and private concerns. That means all funding options must be considered, including state general fund allocations, state ballot measures, tolling and managed lanes or other user fees, federal appropriations, local government contributions and localized taxing tools such as regional transportation authorities.

• This is a long-term process that will require extraordinary intraregional cooperation for decades.

In future columns, I'll outline what you can do to help. It's going to take all of us to get north I-25 moving again.

David May is president and CEO of the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce. Email: davidmay@fcchamber.org.